Saturday, December 19, 2015

Decide to Relinquish Bitterness

Relinquish is defined as “voluntarily cease to keep or
claim; give up.”

Does that sound like something we can make up our minds to
do? Yes.

Do we need to feel like doing it before we can decide to do
it? No.

We can relinquish bitterness even if we don’t feel like it.

Why? Because God tells us to. And when we get to the point in
life where the only purpose is to please Him, we do what He would have us do
through the power and name of Jesus Christ and His Holy Spirit in us.

Bitterness and forgiveness are linked.

Some might say that I have not truly forgiven someone if I am still
bitter. But I believe that bitterness is an aspect of hurt that can remain even after we forgive. If we forgive, but don’t take steps to deal with and get beyond the hurt, we will harbor bitterness.

And bitterness takes up crucial space in our hearts and minds that Christian maturity is
waiting to occupy.

Many of us hang on to bitterness like a security blanket.

I believe this is because we are afraid of being doormats. We are afraid of
not being respected. We are afraid of "it" (whatever "it" is) happening to us
again. So we cover ourselves in the Teflon of bitterness.

But let me ask: Does
this Teflon truly protect us? Since we’ve been wearing it, has all hurt gone
away? Has everyone acted respectfully towards us? Has our Teflon brought about
the desired interactions with people? Has it flooded our inbox with apologies
from others?

See, we have this warped idea that protecting ourselves with
the nursing of old wounds will ensure that we are never hurt again. But that
doesn’t work. While I’m over here, obsessing about “that one time,” here comes yet another "time" to whack me alongside the head. Here comes "Mr. or Mrs. Gets-Under-My-Skin" with their usual antics. They haven’t seemed to notice my bitterness.
Or maybe my bitterness has made their antics even worse!

The point is, now
bitterness is piling on with every interaction. And we go home and stew. And we
say, “Lord, I forgive him or her.” But then we hurt. And that’s where we get stuck:
in the hurt.

“When you forgive, you are promising to no longer hold your
offender’s trespasses against him. You are also promising to impute your
forgiveness to him (much like Christ imputed His righteousness to you when you
became a Christian)...When you promise not to impute your offender’s trespasses
against him, you are promising to no longer charge him for what he has done.
This means you are not going to allow yourself to dwell on the offense. You
will refuse to cultivate those seeds of hurt, but rather will immediately pluck
them out of the soil of your heart. You will relinquish all “rights” to get
even.

When you promise to impute your forgiveness, you credit your
offender’s account with your forgiveness, much like Christ credited your
heavenly account with His righteousness. You make every effort to think well of
him, to pray for him, and to speak well of him, if possible. This promise, to
some extent, can be made in the form of a personal commitment in your heart
even if your offender does not acknowledge his sins to you. This is what is
sometimes referred to as “forgiving someone in your heart.” (see Mark 11:25).

That, to me, is the compelling reason to forgive and to move
on from the hurt: because Christ forgives us every time we sin, when we repent; because He took upon Himself the Cross, in much pain and agony, in order to
forgive us. To be sure, though our pain may be great, it compares
nothing to what Christ experienced.

When I remember my own sin against others (which is always
against God too), and the pain I myself have inflicted, I wonder how I could
ever harbor a grudge, nurse a wound, or form a hardened heart. As a mom, I have
sinned. As a wife, I have sinned. As a daughter, I have sinned. Am I holding
others to a standard I myself have not yet attained?

“Forgiveness is not the same as trust. If someone sins
against you, it is incumbent upon you as a Christian to forgive that person as
you have been forgiven by God in Christ (cf. Matt. 18:21-35). However, it is
incumbent upon that person to earn back the trust he lost as a result of his
sin. Forgiveness should be immediate. Trust may take time (see Matt. 25:14-31;
Luke 16:10-12). But please be warned: to withhold trust after it has been
earned is unloving. The Bible says that ‘love believes all things’ (1 Cor.
13:7). This means that if we love someone, in the absence of hard evidence to
the contrary, we will put the best possible interpretation on what he does—in
this case, believing that the fruit of repentance he has brought forth is
genuine. And whether or not you are able to quickly trust your offender, you
must always trust God to work through him and to protect you from danger.”

If the person is not a believing Christian, pray that God
would get their attention. I always say, you can’t expect non-Christians to act
like Christians. And sadly, due to our fallen-ness, even Christians will not
always act like Christians.

Lou Priolo assures us that the answer to all of this is to
trust God: with our hurt (trust that He sees it and can heal it); and our
future protection (to overcome evil with good).

Nothing escapes God. Others may
behave poorly and unfairly. God sees that. However, God calls us, His children, to a
higher standard: the standard spelled out in His Word and prompted by the Holy
Spirit in us. We need to set our radio dial to God, not the world and people
around us, and tune in to Him alone. Only then can we be sure that, come what
may, we are not part of the problem. And bitterness will not take root.

copyright Barb Harwood

"For the Spirit God gave us does not make us timid, but gives us power, love and self-discipline." 2 Timothy 1:7

"Do not let any unwholesome talk come out of your mouths, but only what is helpful for building others up according to their needs, that it may benefit those who listen. And do not grieve the Holy Spirit of God, with whom you were sealed for the day of redemption. Get rid of all bitterness, rage and anger, brawling and slander, along with every form of malice. Be kind and compassionate to one another, forgiving each other, just as in Christ God forgave you." Ephesians 4:29-32

"Make every effort to live in peace with everyone and to be holy; without holiness no one will see the Lord. See to it that no one falls short of the grace of God and that no bitter root grows up to cause trouble and defile many. Hebrews 12:14-15